


初恋 (primary)

by tostitos



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Cute, Cute Kids, Deaf Character, First Crush, First Love, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 01:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15377379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tostitos/pseuds/tostitos
Summary: “He really feels like he’s going to die and he fears what they’d tell his parents.Hello, I’m sorry to say your son, Minhyuk, has died trying to give a love letter to one of his classmates.”





	初恋 (primary)

**Author's Note:**

> written for the ‘kids’ square for hyunghyuk bingo

Minhyuk doesn’t pay attention to his classmates racing for the door at the start of recess after lunch, instead staring down at where his hands are trembling in his lap, fingers pinched tight around the corners of a powder blue envelope. His heart is in no better shape, pounding in his chest like he’s had five energy drinks. He really feels like he’s going to die and he fears what they’d tell his parents. _Hello, I’m sorry to say your son, Minhyuk, has died trying to give a love letter to one of his classmates._ They can’t put that on his headstone! Never mind the fact that he was hoping he’d at least make it to thirteen before puberty makes his life a complete disaster anyway.

“Yo, Minhyuk!”

Flinching, Minhyuk quickly shoves the envelope back into his desk and turns around to see the group of kids he calls his friends loitering around the back door to the classroom.

Kihyun stands at the front of the pack, a soccer tucked under his arms. “You gonna play?”

Minhyuk glances back over his shoulder at the boy sitting in the far left seat of the front row, face tucked in a book, and swallows. Turning back to his friends, he nods. “Y-Yeah, wait up,” he says, voicing cracking awkwardly as it does.

He pushes out of his seat and tries to shake the jitters out of his hands as he walks up to the group of boys.

“Why were you looking at Hyungwon?” Kihyun asks, raising an eyebrow.

Shaking his head, Minhyuk urges his friends out of the classroom. “Nothing. I just wonder why he never comes outside.”

“Well, it’s not like he can play so why would he?” Hoseok, one of the two sixth graders in their group, shrugs.

Minhyuk bites back a grimace and keeps his thoughts to himself. He forces a chuckle. “Yeah, you’re right.”

♡

“Mom...” Minhyuk starts that night as he sits on the couch, mostly unfinished math worksheet resting on a folder on his lap.

“I’m not doing your math homework for you, Minhyuk,” his mom automatically responds, not looking away from the laundry she’s folding. His dad is working on dinner in the kitchen and humming off-tune to a random song in his head.

Minhyuk glances down at his homework. “No, that’s not...It’s not about my homework,” he says, fingers starting to play with the corners of the worksheet, rolling and curling the paper. “It’s about, um, this kid at school.”

His mom stops folding and looks at him with a frown. “Is someone bullying you?”

“No!” Minhyuk is quick to assert. “No, it’s not me, but one of my classmates,” he says. “No one beats him up or anything, but when we have play time or can choose our own partners in class, no one thinks about him. Like everyone has decided to just ignore him.”

His mom sits beside him and cards her fingers through his hair. “And do you ignore him too?”

Minhyuk looks into his mom’s eyes. Quickly averting his eyes back to his homework, he nods.

“Why?”

Shrugging, Minhyuk bites his lip. “It’s not right that everyone leaves him out and I want to talk to him but I can’t,” he says.

“Minhyuk,” his mom tuts disapprovingly, “don’t let those mean kids influence you. I’m sure he’d appreciate a friend at school.”

“I know but I _can’t_ ,” Minhyuk says desperately, a blush lighting up his cheeks. “I try but when he looks at me, I can’t remember anything! And then I look stupid and I don’t want to look stupid in front of him.”

His mom starts to speak but stops to look at her son carefully for a moment. “Minhyuk, I’m sure he won’t think that,” she says. “I think he’d mostly care that you tried in the first place.”

“I know.” Minhyuk pouts, almost rolling his paper down to halfway. “But he makes me nervous.”

Taking the paper and his folder, his mom moves it to her other side out of his reach. “It’s sounds like you really want to be his friend.”

Minhyuk’s blush deepens and he nods shyly.

His mom wraps an arm around his shoulder and presses a kiss to his temple. “I’m sure he’d like you, sweetheart.”

♡

“I don’t feel too well. I’m gonna stay here.” Minhyuk waves off Kihyun when he drops by his desk at recess a few days later.

Kihyun shrugs and pats him on the back and tells him to feel better before leaving to find the rest of their friends.

As soon as he’s gone, Minhyuk slides out the envelope that’s been in there for two weeks. It’s crinkled from where he’s held it in a death grip so many times and he tries to smooth out the creases to no success.

He bounces his leg nervously as he stares at the back of his crush’s head.

Hyungwon is once again buried in a book, leaning on one of his arms and whispering under his breath.

Minhyuk’s stomach does about twenty five different kinds of acrobatic flips at the sound of Hyungwon chuckling at something in his book and the intense feeling makes him panic. So he shoves the envelope back into his desk just like every other day.

But he wants to talk to him. He can’t keep doing this over and over again.

Sliding out of his seat, Minhyuk walks on shaky legs to the front of the classroom. Hyungwon doesn’t look up until Minhyuk is standing behind the chair next to him and Minhyuk waves at him awkwardly when he does.

“H-Hi,” Minhyuk says. His voice cracks and a blush warms his cheeks in embarrassment.

Hyungwon blinks at him with eyes that cover about seventy percent of his entire face. He looks like a bug.

Minhyuk likes bugs.

“What are you reading?”

Hyungwon looks down at his comic book before placing a green origami bookmark between the pages and closing it so he can show Minhyuk the front cover featuring a chubby-cheeked prince stumbling under the weight of a sword and a glorious, green dragon. He puts it down soon after. “It’s about a prince who’s afraid of everything who gets sent out to slay a dragon,” he explains, both with his quiet voice and his hands because it’s a habit to use both.

His speech is a little awkward, some of the consonants slurred and his vowels not quite clear, but it’s better than it was in the beginning of the year, when he joined their class a few months late after being homeschooled and had a hard time adapting to speaking more often. He’s still a fluent speaker, though; unfortunately no one speaks the language of his hands.

Minhyuk likes watching the way his hands rise and fall and his fingers curl, thinks it’s cool that it all somehow means something even if he doesn’t understand.

He looks between the book and Hyungwon’s eyes, unable to meet the other boy’s curious gaze for too long without being afraid of losing his nerve.

Hyungwon misunderstands, reaching for the book again and holding it out for Minhyuk. “D-Do you want...?” he offers, trailing off unsure.

Shaking his head, Minhyuk waves his hands. “No, it’s okay. I just- when it’s playtime you never come outside, you’re always reading in here so I wanted to know what books you like. I didn’t know you like comics,” he says quickly.

It’s perhaps a bit too quick for Hyungwon whose face falls. Before Hyungwon first arrived, their teacher warned them to speak clearly with him — not too slow or too fast, not too quiet or too loud — because while his aids boost what he can hear, it still isn’t the same as the rest of them. And Minhyuk knows it must hurt Hyungwon to know their classmates have given up on him because it’s too much work to talk to the deaf kid.

Hyungwon looks at him with unfocused eyes, as if he’s already logged out of the conversation and Minhyuk feels his heart beat triple.

No! This is not what he wanted! He _knew_ he wasn’t ready to try talking to Hyungwon.

“B-But!” He throws out his hands as if to stop Hyungwon from leaving, even if there’s no where the other boy would go. “Maybe next time...w-when you finish, I’ll look at it.”

Hyungwon glances down at the comic in his hands. When he raises his head to look at Minhyuk again, his cheeks are flushed and his lips are spread in a shy smile. “Okay.”

A fierce blush sweeps across Minhyuk’s face and his heart starts running laps around his chest. Seeing his crush look so happy...because of him!

“You’re really cute!” he blurts out, only to immediately be swallowed by a wave of horror when he can’t swim.

No! He wasn’t supposed to say that! He was supposed to tell Hyungwon to take his time and that maybe next time Minhyuk will bring one of his own comics to trade.

Hyungwon’s own cheeks redden a little more and he curls his shoulders in. His mouth pops open but no words come out so he lifts his hands to sign.

Their teacher put up a poster with basic sign diagrams and Minhyuk glances over at it to see if it’ll help.

‘ _Thank you_ ‘.

Minhyuk sucks in a sharp breath. He called Hyungwon cute. He needs to get out of there. He should have gone outside. Why did he think he could talk to Hyungwon? He can never talk to Hyungwon ever again. He has to tell his mom he needs to change schools. Maybe they’ll need to move to a different town.

“Y-You’re welcome,” he stutters out. Looking around, his eyes find the clock. There are fifteen minutes left until the end of recess. “Well, see you. I-I have to go to the bathroom.”

And hide away forever.

**Author's Note:**

> just for clarification: hyungwon was born with severe hearing loss. his parents prioritized teaching him to sign over learning to speak when he was young and while he has gone through lessons and speech therapy, he isn’t as fluent in speech as his peers, especially since he mostly signed when he was homeschooled.


End file.
